The Adventures of Moira Brown
by Keith B. Real
Summary: Moira Brown is the Capital Wasteland's last chance for salvation, redemption, vindication, and other words that end in ion.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One.**

Moira Brown sat in a dumpster seeing if she could count the items piled in with her. It was interesting to think about, and it was a welcome distraction to what was going on outside.

When she heard her former assistant's skull pop between the deathclaw's jaws, she risked reaching into the front pocket of her jumpsuit for her box of Mentats. Carefully, she opened it and put one in her mouth, letting it dissolve on her tongue as she put the box carefully back. She went back to counting the different types of items, idly hoping she would spy something useful.

The deathclaw snarled at something, and was responded to by the snarl of another deathclaw. _So they run in packs,_ Moira thought. _At least they're not lonely._ She made a mental note to make a paper note later about the deathclaws being pack hunters. She wished she could make one now, without risk of the creature's hearing her, that way if someone found her maybe at least the note would survive to let others know.

From the sounds, she guessed the deathclaws were fighting over the remains of her assistant. For a moment, she dared consider lowering the lid on the dumpster, closing herself in. She thought better of it, knowing that if the deathclaws sensed where she was hiding she was dead, lid or no lid.

She went back to counting items, trying not to think about the danger she was in. Her eyes fell on something gray and cylindrical sticking out from beneath and only bag of potato chips near her foot. Slowly, she reached for the object and pulled it from beneath the chip bag.

It was a .44 magnum revolver, a Smith & Wesson model. Glancing at it and feeling the weight in her hand, she thought it was in fairly good condition. It could use a good cleaning, but what in the wasteland couldn't?

She also noticed that it was loaded. Whether the bullets were any good, she couldn't tell without opening the cylinder which would make a clicking noise. She had already risked much by moving it from beneath the potato chip bag. The deathclaws had settled their differences and, from the sound, each had found some meat to chew on.

Moira made another mental note, this one telling her to make a paper note about how sometimes one could find useful weapons hidden in odd places, so it never hurt to look. She went back to counting items, hoping the deathclaws would finish eating and wander off before nightfall. If she wasn't back in Megaton by morning, it was likely people would assume she had died. The mercenary she had gone through so much trouble to hire to guard the store would wander off and the townspeople would likely begin dividing up her things.

She could put a stop to that easy enough once she got back, but it was still annoying and Moira didn't want to have to go through it again.

The wind shifted. She caught the scent of blood and torn open bowels. _Which means my smell isn't blowing their way,_ she thought happily, reaching for another Mentat. In the back of her mind, she knew she was addicted to the things, but they kept her mind sharp when life seemed intent on dulling her intellect.

Distracting herself once more with her counting, she almost didn't realize the deathclaws had finished eating and were now sniffing around until one bumped the dumpster. The noise startled her and made her shift her body, which made a sound. _Well, I'm dead,_ she thought. _I sure hope this gun works._

The deathclaw poked its wide, reptilian snout over the lip of the dumpster and opened its jaws to enclose Moira's skull. "Here goes nothing," she said, pulling the trigger while pointing the barrel down the monster's throat.

The gun fired, its kick nearly snapping Moira's wrist while the sound made her ears ring. She dropped the gun as the deathclaw's neck struck the edge of the dumpster. She heard its body brush the outside wall and she took the opportunity to quickly close the lid. The second deathclaw wasted little time rushing to devour its dead comrade, and with the lid now shut, perhaps it wouldn't go poking around after her.

She popped another Mentat, confident the sound of tearing flesh would cover her own noise. Lying back against the dumpster wall, she rubbed her sore wrist and wondered what deathclaw meat tasted like. _I'll bet it's tough,_ she thought.

Moira didn't dare fall asleep, lest her snoring make the second deathclaw curious. She passed another long set of hours staring into the interior of the now dark dumpster, alone with her thoughts. It occurred to her she should put something in her Wasteland Survival Guide about using dumpsters as hiding places. _Make sure to close the lid,_ she thought.

At some point, she noticed she could no longer hear the deathclaw outside. Carefully, she picked up the magnum and risked taking a peek over the lip of the dumpster by lifting the top a few inches.

Night had fallen.

Crossing the wasteland at night was not a good idea. The actual dangers were roughly the same, but people's ability to spot danger before it spotted them was greatly decreased. Her nose caught the scent of the dead deathclaw and she looked down. From what she could tell in the faint starlight, the other deathclaw had left quite a bit of meat, perhaps being already half full from her former assistant. _What was her name?_ Moira thought, feeling bad about not being able to remember. She went though so many assistants, it really was no wonder she couldn't keep them all straight.

The corpse would soon attract other things, mostly likely wild dogs or giant mole rats, but she wouldn't be surprised if a radscorpion happened by. One thing she had learned while writing the Wasteland Survival Guide was that nothing in the wasteland was above scavenging, except for robots.

Popping another Mentat, she climbed out of the dumpster and avoided stepping on the dead deathclaw. She knew she was on the west side of the old Super-Duper Mart, and knowing that she knew which way was north to Megaton. The distance itself wasn't long, but the rocky terrain and various dangers made the going slow. She went as fast as she could, praying to whatever gods now ruled the wastes that she would reach Megaton before morning and in once piece.

**To be continued…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two.**

Traveling to Megaton under the cover of darkness didn't pan out like Moira had planned.

Walking past a picnic table, she tripped over something that grunted. After that, there was quite a bit of shouting, and soon a gasoline fueled campfire had been lit. Moira found herself surrounded by people dressed in spiked leather armor with equally spiked haircuts. All bore scars and haphazard tattoos, marking them as raiders.

"I was hopin' for a midnight snack," the biggest one said. He was bald and took Moira's magnum from her, shoving it in his belt while two smaller raiders held her still. They dragged her over by the fire where each member of the eight-man gang could stare at her.

_Well, this isn't good,_ she thought. _Maybe I can learn something about how the raiders survive out here, if I survive of course…_

"She's one of them Megaton assholes," a short, brown skinned raider said. Moira was surprised, she had taken the raider for a man, but it was a woman. "I say we fuckin' skin the bitch."

"Yeah," one of the ones holding her by the arm said. "Teach those assholes to horde all the water."

"You're all fuckin' stupid," a raider on the other side of the hastily lit fire said. "Tie her ass up and haul her up to Evergreen. We sell the bitch there, buy some fucking good gear, and burn that shithole town to the ground."

They argued for a few minutes on the merits of buying gear versus simply stealing it, but eventually the one who was lobbying for her enslavement won out with the logic that buying was easy and simple if you had the money, which they would have once they sold her.

Moira wondered if her guide might also include a sidebar on raider democracy and began taking mental notes.

"How come we can't sell her to Megaton? Ya know, like ransom?" said another raider.

"I like that idea," Moira said. The comment earned her a slap to the back of the head and a curse.

_Well, they're as mean as people say,_ Moira thought. _At least that's one entry in the guide I won't have to change. _

"Those cheap fucks won't ransom shit," the leader of the raiders said. "Jenker is right, we'll sell her ass to Evergreen Mills." He grabbed Moira by the chin and turned her face to the light. "If we market her as a whore, maybe we can get a little extra."

Moira swallowed hard. She had a bad feeling about where the conversation might now be headed. Thankfully, it didn't go in that direction, or at least wouldn't that night. The raiders tied her hands to her back with an old rope and tied her feet with a strand of wire. "Try to crawl off and we'll break your fucking legs," the leader said as someone threw dirt on the fire.

The raiders went back to where they had been sleeping. One pushed her down, hard, and kicked her as he went to his own sleeping mat. Lying on her back, Moira noticed they posted a lookout, the woman. _She must have been asleep when I came through,_ Moira thought. She knew she couldn't crawl off with no one noticing, and began to turn her mind to how she was going to get out of the mess she was in.

***

Her salvation came in the form of death.

The sun had come up and the wasteland grew warm quickly. Moira had managed a few hours of sleep and was struggling to walk over the rough ground as she was led with her hands now tied by a rope around her neck. The small female raider was leading her and not caring much about tugging on the rope too hard.

She hadn't had a Mentat in what seemed like days, but didn't dare try to get one out of her jumpsuit pocket, not that she could anyway. Six of the raiders walked behind her with only the leader and the one leading her by the rope in front. The one directly behind her enjoyed hitting or kicking her whenever she stumbled, and she thought she might devote a large part of the guide to how to avoid being captured by raiders. They weren't very nice people at all.

One raider was still advocating her rape and dismemberment, and had just launched into another campaign speech when she heard a gurgled scream, followed by shouting and gunfire.

They all turned to see what the commotion was. Moira nearly fainted when she saw it. A deathclaw, perhaps the same one from the day before, had killed one raider and was in the process of disemboweling a second. They all began firing, their low caliber weapons putting bullets into the creature's thick skin. A magnum blast down the throat might easily kill a deathclaw, but with what the raiders had, it wouldn't go down quickly.

Moira ran.

She would never know how she didn't fall flat on her face with her hands tied behind her, but once the raider leading her let go of the rope around her neck, bolting seemed like the best option for her. As she ran, she heard the raiders scream and felt a bullet whiz past her ear. _Nasty people, _ she thought.

Her only chance was to put as much distance between her and the deathclaw as possible before it finished with the raiders. With luck, it would take its time to eat them instead of chasing after her, but there was no guarantee it wouldn't go for the thrill of chasing prey over eating killed food. She lamented that she still knew little about deathclaw behavior, despite having witnessed them so close.

The wasteland could play tricks on the eyes. Much of the terrain looked the same, barren, rocky, strewn with bits and pieces of trash too worthless to be used as anything but fuel for a campfire. The effect could sometimes create an optical illusion; one moment you were walking over what you thought was relatively flat terrain only to find that your next step was off a cliff. This is what happened to Moira.

She fell forward. She had the presence of mind to tuck her head in and try to roll. It was also lucky the cliff she had walked over wasn't a straight drop, but more of an incline. As she rolled, the poor quality of the rope used to tie her hands came through and her bonds broke.

Battered and bruised, she got to her feet and saw that she had rolled down in back of a long, tin shack. There was nothing to hide in or under, so she ran with a limp around to the front, where she saw the shack had at one point been a house. There was a door, and she limped towards it, praying it was unlocked.

It was, and she nearly fell through. Moira frantically closed the door behind her and sat against it, breathing hard.

"You look familiar," said a blond woman sitting at the kitchen table to Moira's left. Moira thought she looked familiar too. Had she seen the woman in Megaton? Her hair was long, blond and wavy. Few people in Megaton, even the women, had the time to keep their hair looking nice. Even the prostitute that worked at Moriarty's favored a scuffled look. "Do I know you?"

The woman's voice had a distant tone to it. "Um, you might," Moira said, standing up and looking for the lock on the door. "Are you from Megaton?"

"Yeah," the woman said. "Name's Silver. That bastard Moriarty wants my ass, so I'm hiding…shit, you won't tell?"

"No," Moira said. "Say, you don't have a weapon somewhere around here, do you? There's a bit of a situation outside and I could really use your help."

"Weapon," Silver said, looking around the kitchen. Moira noticed a can of Buffout sitting next to a nearly empty bottle of whisky. "There's a knife."

Moira took a rusted butcher knife from the stove top and decided to take a seat at the kitchen table next to Silver.

"I do know you," Silver said. "You're that shopkeeper, Moira."

"Yes," Moira said. "Listen, like I said, there's a teency weency problem going on outside. There's at least one deathclaw running around and some raiders…well, probably just the deathclaw now, but we might be in danger."

Silver laughed, and took a swig of whisky. "You're not in danger, you're in the wasteland," Silver said. "It's like this all the time, trust me. I didn't know how good I had it in Megaton until I came out here. Say, could you help me? I owe that bastard Colin Moriarty a lot of caps and he wants my ass for it. Thinks I ran off on a binge…what does he know?"

"Uh, the economy is in a slump right now, and I need to replace some pipes," Moira said. She considered herself a nice person, and would help anyone when she could, but when it came to lending money, she had a policy.

"Oh," Silver said. "Well, can you just tell Moriarty I'm dead?"

Moira frowned. She didn't like the idea of talking to Colin Moriarty, much less lying to the man. Rumor had it Moriarty had dirt on everyone in town. Moira didn't know what Moriarty might have had on her, there was nothing she could think of, but it was a risk she was hesitant to run.

An idea occurred to her.

"I know," Moira said. "I'll pay Moriarty your debt, and you can work it off as my assistant."

Silver blinked, hard, and seemed to sober up slightly. "Your assistant? I guess…"

"Great!" Moira said, nearly forgetting the deathclaw likely prowling outside. "I could use another one, my last didn't work out."

Silver finished off her whisky. "Deal, then. I'm going to go take a nap, then we can head back to Megaton."

Moira watched her get up and stagger up the stairs. Moira felt tired herself, but knowing what was beyond the tattered home's thin walls, she didn't dare sleep and ate two Mentats instead.

**To be continued…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three.**

Moira didn't hear any deathclaws or raiders outside, and fell asleep for a time at the kitchen table. When she woke, she ate a few Mentats and peered out the boarded up window. Judging by the long shadows, she thought it was afternoon.

She went upstairs to where Silver had passed out on a filthy mattress. She nudged the woman's foot with her own and jumped back when Silver bolted up, yelling and wielding a gun.

"Who the hell are you!?" Silver shouted.

"M-Moira Brown. We met a few hours ago. I hired you as my assistant."

Silver's blue eyes narrowed, beaming suspicion and malice at Moira. Her gaze suddenly softened. "Oh yeah," she said. "Damn, what have I gotten myself into…"

"What do you mean?" Moira asked.

"You and your assistants," Silver said. "Word around Megaton is that you've gone through enough assistants to depopulate half the Wasteland."

"Oh," Moira said. "Well…it's to save lives. Once the guide is written and distributed, people will have some idea of what the dangers are out here."

"Yeah, sure," Silver said, putting her gun away and scratching her head. "I guess I can help you, just as long as I don't have to do anything dangerous and you don't tell Moriarty about where I'm at."

Frowning, Moira followed Silver downstairs and outside. She mentioned the deathclaws and raiders again, but Silver waved her off, saying something about being done a favor if she were to be eaten.

They made it back to Megaton shortly after it grew dark. Moira was happy to see her shop hadn't been commandeered, but wasn't surprised to see that the mercenary she hired to guard the place had wandered off. He didn't leave the difference in pay for his unfilled contract either, Moira noticed, as she got four hundred caps out of her safe to cover Silver's debt.

Moira followed Silver to Moriarty's, where she threw the four hundred caps at him and left before he could say anything.

"I'll warn you," Silver said, leading Moira back to Craterside Supply. "He's not going to take that money and leave me alone. If you've got any secrets, I'd hide them now."

Moira took a fresh box of Mentats from beneath the front counter once they were inside and ate two of the pills. She thought hard for anything she might have in her past that Moriarty might want to use against her, but could come up with nothing. She briefly thought it might be interesting to see what Moriarty find, but decided it wouldn't be worth it.

"Where am I sleeping?" Silver asked.

"Upstairs," Moira said, pointing to the catwalks above them. She ate another Mentat.

Silver went upstairs and Moira heard her open the door to her bedroom and not flop down on the guest bed she kept available. Moira had time to sigh, and scratch her head when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," she said.

The door opened and the welcome sight of Lucas Simms stepped in out of the growing darkness outside. "Moira," he said, tipping his cowboy hat slightly.

"High, Sheriff," she said, glad to see someone who wasn't a deathclaw, raider, or Colin Moriarty. "Can I help you?"

Simms looked around the ground floor of the shop and then looked above to the catwalks. "Did I see you come in here with that girl, Silver?"

"Yes," Moira said after a pause. "Is…is she wanted?"

Simms snorted. "I suppose. Not by me. I heard you two went into Moriarty's and told him off."

"Well…Silver owed him money and I needed an assistant, so…"

"It ain't none of my business," Simms said. "But I just want you to know that you might not be wanting to get into that sort of trouble. I don't know what you get into while you're out in the wasteland, but one thing about it, it don't follow you home. Moriarty on the other hand, he's across the street and he's not the kind of trouble you want."

Moira ate another Mentat and thought she really should try to cut back on them. They made her feel better, though, and she had been having a rough couple of days. "I know," Moira said. "Has he ever…done anything to anyone?"

Simms shrugged. "Him personally? Probably. I'd keep my door locked, in case you don't already. Sleep far away from where that Silver sleeps. Maybe he'll just take his money and leave."

Moira's fingers fiddled with the box of Mentats, but she didn't eat one. "I lock my door all the time," she said. "I guess my security measures might get tested. I've always wanted to know how well they work."

"Yeah," Simms said, looking at her with a sideways glance as he turned to leave. "Take care and let me know if there's trouble."

"Good night," Moira said.

"Yeah," Simms said, shutting the door behind him as he left.

Simms had a point; she was safe behind the walls of Megaton. Even with an unexploded nuclear weapon sitting in the middle of the town, the only things she had to worry about were shifty people coming through her shop and radiation poisoning. The deathclaws, raiders, and other mutants stayed away from the town and didn't follow her inside.

Having an enemy within the town wasn't an idea she liked, but she didn't think she could bring herself to throw Silver out. Not until she got four hundred caps worth of assistance from her, at least.

**To be continued…**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four.**

Moira awoke to the sound of someone pounding on the front door bellow. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, noticing that the sun wasn't coming in through the window above the spare bed like it should have.

The past few days were catching up to her, and she walked downstairs on autopilot, able to grasp only simple concepts such as putting on foot in front of the other and reaching for the door knob. She opened the door and squinted at the backlit figure before her. The brim hat made her think at first it was Lucas Simms again, but it wasn't.

"Huh?" she said, shading her eyes.

"Ms. Brown," the man said. "May I come in?"

"Uh, sure," she said, stepping back. The door shut and Moira's brain began to warm up. Who was this person she had just let it her shop before it was supposed to open? He wore a grimy, grey business suit, sunglasses, and a matching hat with a short brim.

"Where are my manners?" the man said. "My name is Mr. Burke. I represent certain parties with an interest in Megaton's future and we have a business proposition for you."

"Uh?" Moira said. She wasn't used to being up early, especially after so many nights with little sleep. She reached for a Mentat but couldn't find a pocket.

"You are Moira Brown, correct?" Mr. Burke said.

"I'm Moira," she said. "You just woke me up, that's all."

"The early bird gets the worm, as they say."

"Who has worms?" _Where are my Mentats?_ She thought.

Mr. Burke coughed. He had come into the shop farther than was polite and was looking the place over, especially the catwalks above. "You're something of a technician I'm told, is that correct?"

Moira yawned. "Oh, yeah, I'm always tinkering with things and building stuff. I just run this shop to fund my work."

Mr. Burke frowned. "I see. We could pay you quite handsomely for what we are requesting. What do you know about the bomb?"

He was of course referring to the unexploded nuclear bomb that sat at the center of Megaton. When it landed, it had formed a large crater, the sloping sides of which the town was built around.

"I know it's from the war," Moira said. "I tried to look at it once, but everyone yelled at me. They leave that church person alone though…"

"Yes, yes," Mr. Burke said. "What if I said I would be willing to make it worth your while to see to it that the bomb…goes off?"

"Goes off? Goes off to where?" Moira asked, still patting her chest in search of her Mentat box.

"Goes kaboom," Mr. Burke said. "I can pay you to wipe this town off the map. How does that suit you? Imagine it, enough money to set up in Rivet City with better stock, better people, zero chance of being killed by raiders or God only knows what else wants those walls down. All the time you need to tinker. How does that suit you?"

She wondered if she wasn't dreaming. Sometimes she had strange dreams. In her last, she was a robot and everyone was trying to sell her old tin cans but she kept telling them she couldn't accept tin because it was cannibalism. She didn't think this was a dream, though. In her dreams, she didn't need a Mentat as badly as she did now, her feet and arms weren't cold, and she couldn't taste her own morning breath.

"I don't think I could blow up Megaton," Moira said. "I mean, I could, as in I'm pretty sure I could rig the bomb to go off, but I couldn't do that to everyone. They'd be mad when they came back and found their houses gone, after all."

Mr. Burke's face had been neutral, but now Moira could clearly detect a sneer. "There are other things we can offer aside from money," he said. "That whore you've got living with you has enemies. Enemies we can make disappear if you decide to cooperate."

Moira blinked, her tired brain now spurned to action by fear. Like nearly everyone in the wasteland, Mr. Burke was carrying a pistol. She knew people would be up in town and would hear if there was a shot or if she screamed, but she would be just as dead whether anyone came running or not. "Enemies? Who do you mean?"

"Colin Moriarty," he said. "He isn't happy with that whore, nor is he pleased with you. He's been looking dirt on you for quite some time, and unless you want it known that someone was in here asking you to blow up the town in exchange for some caps, I suggest you cooperate."

She scratched her head, confused. Was she being made an offer, or being threatened? Even if she said no to Mr. Burke, he was right, it wouldn't reflect well on her to have people know what they had discussed. Mr. Burke could leave and never come back, but she had quite a bit invested in Megaton.

She needed to get him out of the shop so she could think and find her Mentats. "What did you have in mind?"

Mr. Burke pulled a small electronic device from his pocket and handed it to her. He explained that all she had to do was install it on the bomb and set it with enough time for her to get to Tenpenny Tower to collect her pay before she was caught in the blast.

"Why don't you do it?" she asked.

"I'm not familiar enough with the device's inner workings to install it quickly in the dead of night. You on the other hand have a passing familiarity with the bomb and won't attract as much suspicion."

"But…"

"We'll find someone else if you won't do it," Mr. Burke said. "So look at it this way, you can either wake up someday in Rivet City on a pile of caps, or you can wake up in a mushroom cloud. Come to Tenpenny Tower when the job is done, otherwise I'll be keeping watch from afar."

Mr. Burke tipped his hat and left. Moira blinked and looked at the device she had been handed while patting her clothes for a Mentat. She sighed, realizing she was only wearing a t-shirt and underpants, having forgotten to put on her jumpsuit before coming down the stairs. She set the device on the counter and headed back upstairs, knowing she had Mentats in her jumpsuit pockets.

**To be continued…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five. **

Moira stared at an empty box of Mentats, wondering if Leo Stahl might have some he was willing to sell. Silver was sitting at a table on the other side of the shop, nursing a bottle of whisky she had found.

_I'm not blowing up Megaton,_ Moira thought. _But someone might._

It was a little after noon, and only a few people had come through looking to buy anything. Lucy West had wanted paper to send a letter, and Walter was looking for something he could use on the water pumps. She had handled their purchases in a dazed, mechanical fashion, which hadn't gone unnoticed. Silver hadn't gone unnoticed either, but neither Moira or Silver were aware of it.

Moira was too busy contemplating what she was going to do about Mr. Burke to notice much of anything. By the time she had popped her last Mentat, she had worked out three options: Tell Lucas Simms about Mr. Burke and hope he took care of it, do what Mr. Burke said, or leave town forever.

Telling Simms might deal with Mr. Burke, but she was savvy enough to know Simms wouldn't do anything to Moriarty, who Mr. Burke said he was in league with somehow. She wondered how Moriarty felt about Megaton being blown up. Based on what she knew, he had no good reason to go along with such a proposal. Could Mr. Burke have been bluffing?

If he wasn't, she was in trouble.

The things Mr. Burke had said weren't adding up, but for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to ignore his threats. She knew it was a weakness of hers, and that people lied all the time, but for some reason she always seemed to feel there was a ring of truth in whatever people said.

If she left town, where would she go? Getting set up in Megaton hadn't been easy, and aside from Rivet City, few other towns were as secure. Plus, she would hate to hear about Megaton being wiped off the map, knowing she might have done something about it.

She sighed, realizing that was what she would have to do. If she rendered the bomb inoperable, then it didn't matter if Mr. Burke or any of Tenpenny's goons came by and tinkered with it.

But Lucas Simms had told her a long time ago not to go messing with the bomb.

_But Mr. Burke told me how to get around that, didn't he?_ She thought.

All she had to do was go down to the bomb at night and rig it so it couldn't explode, instead of putting on the timer device. _But it'll be dark, and I won't have much time,_ she thought.

She'd have to know what she was doing before she opened the device up, that much was clear. Moira began to wonder where she might get schematics for a nuclear bomb. Based on what she had read about them in old books she had scavenged or bought, the blueprints on how to make them had been kept secret for many years.

Absentmindedly tapping the empty box of Mentats on her chin, and smelling the inside of the box, she thought she remembered something that happened a few months prior. A mercenary had come to the shop looking for something Moira didn't have. She had been a short woman with close-cut red hair who talked like she had been born a man.

_She was a member of Rodney's Rangers, or something like that,_ Moira thought. _What had she wanted?_ Snapping her fingers, she remembered. "A mini-nuke!" she said, making Silver look over at her.

"What?"

"Uh, nothing," Moira said. "Say, I need you to mind the shop for a few days. I'll let Mr. Simms know, so no one bothers you, okay? I've got to go somewhere and get something."

"Bring back booze and chems," Silver said. "God knows I need 'em."

"Uh, I'll do that," Moira said, hoping she'd find a crate of Mentats while she was out. She also hoped she would find a mini-nuke that she could take apart and examine. It stood to reason that the mini-nuke was just a smaller version of a nuke, which was what was sitting at the center of Megaton. Defusing a mini-nuke was likely the exact same procedure as defusing a regular nuke.

_I'm a genius,_ Moira thought. _Now where would I find a mini-nuke?_

Some of the caravan traders often had nifty items they picked up in their travels. She frowned, knowing that a caravan had left Megaton for Grayditch to the south a few days earlier. Another wouldn't be through for a week and a half at the earliest, but the one that left would be a while in Grayditch. It was a small town, but close enough to the ruins to be a hotspot for scavengers, who sold to the caravans.

_If I hurry, I can catch up with them and see if they have a mini-nuke or know where I could get one,_ Moira thought. If she packed light, hurried, and didn't get held up, she could be back in time to figure out the nuke and defuse the big one. With the bomb rendered inert, no one could blow up Megaton, and she couldn't be blamed.

_I really am a genius,_ she thought.

She got up from her stool and headed upstairs where she found a knapsack which she began packing with supplies. She threw it over her shoulder when she was done, and headed back downstairs where she grabbed a 10mm pistol she kept under the counter. She had spare clips in the sack in case things got nasty.

"Alright, the price list is by the counter. No haggling while I'm away," she said to Silver as she walked out the door.

Silver said something, but Moira didn't hear. It took her about five minutes to find Lucas Simms and ask him to keep an eye out for Silver who was watching the shop for her. She didn't notice Simms looking at her as though she were crazier than usual. "I'll keep an eye on it," he said. "Be careful out there. One of these days you're not going to come back."

He, or someone else, said the same sort of thing every time she left on an expedition. Once the guide was complete, all the risk would be worth it. She had packed a few note books and holo-recorders to take notes while headed to Grayditch for the mini-nuke, turning what would have been a distraction into a learning opportunity.

_Genius,_ Moira thought, walking through the front gate of Megaton.

**To be continued…**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six.**

Under normal circumstances, Moira was always sure she had an assistant with her when she traveled. Two heads were better than one when it came to spotting danger.

There had been no time to hire an assistant and Silver had to watch the shop, a task Moira was wondering if she was even capable of. She liked to be charitable when she could, but in the wasteland, some concessions to personal survival had to be made.

Getting to Grayditch didn't take half the time Moira thought it would. Alone and on foot, she was able to follow the makeshift pathways and old roads caravans used. She was careful to keep an eye out for landmines and other booby traps.

Only having been to Grayditch once, she didn't immediately see the problem but she could smell it.

Burnt flesh was a common smell. Fire safety wasn't something most Wastelanders thought about, and at first she thought the people of Grayditch had a little mishap. When she stood at the town's four corners, she began to think different. A few of the ruined houses were on fire, but what puzzled her the most was what looked to be the remains of the caravan strewn about down the street towards the ruins.

She drew her pistol, hoping she wouldn't have to fire it, and walked towards the scattered bags, boxes, and trinkets which she saw many of which had been charred or burnt up completely.

The part of Grayditch that was inhabited was only a small fraction of the homes that could potentially house people. The others that stretched south in blocks were left abandoned either because there weren't enough people to fill them, or there weren't enough who wanted to risk it. Grayditch had nothing in the way of fortification, and in the wasteland, large unfortified settlements didn't last long.

_Raiders must have attacked,_ Moira thought. _Or super mutants._ The burnt bones of humans and brahmin were scattered everywhere, with few complete skeletons. Something had thoroughly picked them clean.

Moira found that most of the gear was burnt up, but some valuable things were left untouched. Bullets, a shotgun, a rifle scope, a pair of binoculars, some denim clothes and…a mini nuke.

The gun kept her from clapping her hands together, but she let out a small cry of surprise and delight. Mini nukes weren't cheap, and while she felt bad about the caravan and what looked to be the rest of Grayditch, their misfortune would save her a few hundred caps. She slipped the small nuclear weapon into her knapsack and as she began to debate the merits of staying around to investigate what had happened, she heard the broken pavement crunch behind her.

Spinning around, she pointed her pistol at the small figure standing not ten feet in front of her. It was a small, shirtless boy wearing a pair of dirty coveralls. His face was smudged with ash and he needed a haircut.

"You gotta get out of here," he said. "B-before they come back."

"They?" Moira said. "You mean the super mutants?"

The boy shook his head furiously. He seemed to be making an effort to remain standing where he was instead of running off. He was looking at the ground, and seemed to be struggling with something. "My dad called them ants. Fire ants. They used to come around now and again for food, but we always drove 'em off, but then…"

Moira stood and moved closer to him, but he backed up as if afraid she would touch him. "Then what?" Moira asked.

The boy looked up at her, his eyes had gone wide and the corners of his mouth had widened. "They breathed fire," he said. "Fire ants, breathed fire…get it?"

He was at the edge of hysterics, Moira could tell, and as much as she wanted to, didn't move closer. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Bryan Wilks," he said. "I lived her with my dad and a few other people, but they're all dead now."

Moira's eyes scanned the rest of Grayditch. The sun was high in the sky, adding to the heat from the nearby burning houses. She was sweating and felt a kind of creeping sense coming from the abandoned blocks to the west.

The wind picked up, wafting the stench of the flames and smoke over them. "What are you going to do?" she asked the boy. The people of Megaton frowned heavily on new people, even orphaned children, coming in and using water. Still, she felt she would have some trouble sleeping if she didn't try to help Bryan Wilks.

The boy began shaking his head. "They'll come back," he said. "They eat everything. Anyone who comes through here is dead meat."

_Hopefully not everyone,_ Moira thought.

"I'll warn people," Bryan said, not looking at Moira anymore. He was speaking to the pavement, or more likely himself. "I can hide from the ants, I'm small enough. I'll come out and tell people about the ants, put up signs…eat what's left."

The boy began to wander off back the way he had come. She moved to follow, but her attention was caught by what sounded like twigs being clapped together.

Walking out from behind a fire hydrant was an ant. Twice the size of a large dog, its reddish brown body skittered quickly over the broken pavement towards her. Its sightless black dot eyes, its wiggling antennas, and most of all its foot and half long mandibles turned Moira's spine into jelly.

"Crap, run!" Bryan shouted, dashing off down the street and disappearing down an alley. Moira heard him clamor over junk and knew he had gone somewhere she wouldn't be able to follow.

It was time to leave Grayditch.

Moira started to run back the way she came but saw two more ants had come out from behind another building. She kept running, confident she could keep enough distance between them to get around and escape. That confidence evaporated when a string of flame spewed twenty feet out from one of the ants in front of her, blocking her path.

_Fire ants,_ Moira said. _Now I get it._

She wasn't leaving without expending some bullets it seemed, so she pointed her gun at the ant that had spit fire and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed and she fired again, and again, and again.

_Oh yeah, I'm a bad shot,_ she thought, now remembering why she tried to get assistants with some combat experience. Another ant had joined the first one she had seen behind her, and as she backed up, she realized the only place she had to go was through a burning building.

She really wished she had some Mentats. Just thinking about them made her mouth water and her body ache. Shaking her head, she took careful aim at an ant to her right and fired, knowing if she didn't start scoring hits, she would burn her to death.

Her bullet clipped the antenna of the ant's antenna, severing it. The gun clicked empty for her next shot, and her shoulders slumped. _That's it, I'm dead,_ she thought. _I wonder what heaven will be like?_

The ant she had wounded spit another gout of flame, this time on its companion. Puzzled, Moira almost didn't move in time when the other ants from the left fired their flame jets. With the other two preoccupied, she dashed forward, away from the burning house to her back and the murderous ants.

_That ant went crazy,_ she thought. _Maybe their sanity is in their antennas?_ She kept running, risking a look back to see that the other hands had teemed up on their crazed companion. Strings of fire were going everywhere, mandibles were clashing. The first ant had burned the other to death, and now it seemed to be an ant free-for-all going on in the center of Grayditch.

More ants were joining them and it seemed as though the mini-insurrection would soon be over and the ants would be a team again. Not wanting to be around for that, Moira headed back towards Megaton.

The fact that she had found no Mentats was offset by having located a mini nuke so easily and gaining a valuable lesson in ant management for the Wasteland Survival Guide. Bryan Wilks seemed like the sort who could look after himself, even if he was an orphan.

As she traveled quickly over the waste towards home, she wondered about the boy. His staying around Grayditch and warning people of the ants wasn't unlike what she was trying to do with the guide. She only hoped he didn't fall victim to what he was serving as a warning post for.

**To be continued…**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven.**

Moira returned to find The Craterside Supply closed.

She didn't remember closing it, so when she walked in, there was some anxiety. Without her Mentats, the feeling was almost unbearable. Once inside she found no sign of Silver, but there was a note from Lucas Simms explaining that he had locked the door and she should seek him out as soon as possible.

Moira stashed the mini nuke in a safe and went off to find Simms. She found him sitting at a table at The Brass Lantern, the only other bar in Megaton, a town big enough for only one bar.

Simms said nothing and waited for her to sit down. He was drinking some sort of amber fluid from a glass and looked glum as usual. "Moira," he said.

"You wanted to see me?"

He shrugged. "I figured you'd want to see me, so I saved you the trouble. Your little friend took off. From the look of your place, I'd say she tried to get into your cap stash, but she settled for taking what wasn't nailed down and what she could carry. You didn't notice?"

Moira thought hard. She had been so glad to see her shop still standing, she hadn't noticed if the interior was intact or not. She needed her Mentats, she could taste them when she moved her tongue. "I did," she lied. "I don't think she got away with much."

"She couldn't. Not without someone noticing. You live, you learn, or you die," Simms said, taking a drink.

"Do you know where she went?" Moira asked.

"No, and I don't care," Simms said. "If I were you, I'd pray Moriarty only had a beef with her and none of it transferred to you. Pray hard, because that man doesn't forget."

It was getting late in the day, but it suddenly seemed hot inside The Brass Lantern. "You don't have any Mentats, do you?" she asked.

"Hell no," Simms said. "Damned things are addictive as hell. He might not come after you because you're one of the only merchants in town, but then again that might be precisely why he's looking for something on you."

_Maybe Leo has some Mentats, _Moira thought. He was known to be the person to go to for seriously addictive drugs; maybe he had plain old Mentats.

"Are you listening? Damnit, Moira, these are not people to be fucking with. Don't think I don't know that Burke was in your place the other day. He's in with Alistair Tenpenny, as I'm sure he told you, and there's a man with connections."

She went pale and began eying Simms' drink. He slid the bottle over to her. "On me," he said.

She grabbed the bottle and took a swig. It made the muscles in her face tense up, but she swallowed. Her head suddenly felt warm. "Mr. Burke wants me to rig the bomb at the center of town to explode," she said. _Did I say that?_ She thought.

Simms blinked, also unsure of what she had said. "Say that again."

There weren't many people in the bar, and both had kept their voices low. Moira looked around and was glad to hear Galaxy News Radio was blaring from behind the counter. She leaned over the table and repeated what she had said.

"Looks like Mr. Burke has to go," Simms said, finishing his drink.

"Wait!" Moira said, grabbing his arm before he stood. "I've had a better idea. I can disarm the bomb and make it useless. If you kill Mr. Burke, Tenpenny will just send somebody else."

Simms relaxed in his chair and took the bottle from her to fill his glass. "I suppose killing him can wait until morning," he said. "Alright, let's hear it."

Moira knew Simms wanted to hear why she thought she should be allowed near the bomb. It was an unwritten law in Megaton, that no one fiddled with the bomb anymore than was necessary. People from the Church of the Atom were allowed to pray near it, but that was it. A careful eye was also kept on them, as some felt they all sought its detonation.

"I've got a mini nuke I can tinker with to see how it works. If I can defuse a small nuke, I can take care of a big one."

Simms frowned under his beard and took a drink. "I have a few problems with that, the least of them being where the hell did you find a mini nuke?"

She related to him what happened to her in Grayditch, and why it wasn't likely they would be seeing anyone from there anytime soon.

"Mentats don't have any hallucinogenic properties, do they?" Simms asked.

"No, but they make you remember more," Moira said, missing the point. "My memory was always fine, but I had so much to remember with the shop it got to be too much."

"Whatever," Simms said. "Anyway, you're not tinkering with the mini nuke in Megaton. Go over to Springvale and be careful. Then come back and convince me you're qualified for the big one. I'll give you two days, then I kill Burke. Either way, I'll have to keep an eye on that damned thing from now on, what with assholes like Tenpenny wanting us wiped off the map."

"Why would Mr. Tenpenny want to blow up Megaton?" Moira asked.

Simms shrugged. "He's an asshole. Nobody these days needs more reason than that," Simms said and took a drink.

Moira sighed, thinking about the Wasteland Survival Guide. She wanted it to be comprehensive, but with the recent business involving the bomb, she wondered if she wouldn't have to leave out a few things, such as how to deal with homicidal rich men with shady connections.

**To be continued…**


	8. Chapter 8

**0Chapter Eight.**

Leo didn't have any Mentats, and seemed to resent Moira's coming to him for her fix. As a result, she spent a fitful night tossing and turning in her bed, both needing her Mentats and worried about the nukes.

In the morning, Moira took her tools and the mini nuke, closed the shop, and headed to nearby Springvale. She cleared a spot on a rusted square platform, flanked on two sides by a mesh fence and junk.

It was early in the morning, and a chilly wind was blowing dust over Springvale. Moira wondered if Silver had returned to her shack, and decided she might check later depending on how much progress she made with the bomb. She considered taking the bomb inside one of the old buildings and working on it under cover, but the lighting would be bad and as long as she paid attention to her surroundings, nothing would sneak up on her.

The outer case came off easily, but once she was looking at the bomb's internal workings, her brow began to furrow. Moira knew her way around most conventional explosives, they were all quite simple, but the mini nuke had wires and parts she had never seen on a bomb before.

Even without her Mentat fix, Moira's mind was able to puzzle out what made the bomb tick. A conventional explosive forced uranium molecules together, causing them to split and release energy. She was so fascinated by how the bomb worked, she didn't notice the footsteps behind her until it was too late.

Something struck her on the back of the neck at the base of her skull and everything went black.

*******

Her eyes opened and she could see someone's heels making tracks in the dust. She let out a moan, as her head hurt. The heels stopped.

"She's awake, she can walk," someone said.

She had been slung over someone's shoulder and was now lying on her back, looking up into the bright sun and three unfriendly faces. Each person was armed with an automatic rifle and wearing a grey uniform with a black armor plate.

"Get your ass up, or we'll cap you. You're not worth much more dead than you are alive," said one of the men. He had blond hair from what Moira could see, and it had been cropped short. Moira got to her feet with some difficulty; standing made her head spin.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"No questions," the blond said. "We're Talon Company and we'll shoot you just as soon as look at you. We're getting a bonus for you being delivered breathing, but if you make it not worth our while, you're dead. Understand?"

Moira had nearly soiled herself when she heard the words Talon Company, and nodded quickly, despite the dizziness.

"Walk," one of the Talons, a short one with a young face, said.

She did as she was told, wondering if a deathclaw wouldn't show up and save her again. She didn't think she would be as lucky in escaping it this time as she had been before and contented herself trying to stay on her captors' good sides.

It soon became clear they were approaching a large building. Most of the old world's skyscrapers were now part of the ruins, a but a few lone towers stood over the Wasteland as landmarks. Nearly every one of them was inhabited by something. Sometimes it was a group of people trying to make a living, but more often than not it was a band of raiders or mutants.

They led her around to the front of the tower, which was surrounded by a cement wall. At the top of a short flight of stairs was the front door with an intercom box next to it. The blond Talon mercenary pushed the button. "Talon Company, open the damned door."

The door large door unlocked and the Talon leader kicked the door open. Inside the courtyard was a number of armed men wearing tan body armor. All looked similar to the ones who had captured her, but Moira thought they all looked nervous, whereas her direct captors had looks of disdain on their faces.

The only man sitting was one of the men in tan uniforms. He had short black hair cut like the Talons but his skin was a dark olive color. He sat behind a reception desk just beyond two square pillars. Behind him was an elevator flanked by two sets of stairs leading up to a second level.

Next to the man on her side of the desk was Mr. Burke.

"So good of you drop by, Ms. Brown," he said. "Welcome to Tenpenny Tower."

The man behind the desk crossed his arms and looked at Moira as though she were some kind of mutant radscorpion some children had dragged in. "Tenpenny didn't say anything about this to me," he said.

"Perhaps Mr. Tenpenny decided to keep you out of the loop," Mr. Burke said. "I trust her arrangements have been…"

"Where," said the blond Talon mercenary who was standing uncomfortably close to Moira. "Is. Our. Fucking. Money?"

Moira wasn't a combat expert, but she questioned the wisdom of being rude to a gang of armed men who had you surrounded.

"Ah yes, you're money," said Mr. Burke. He picked up a briefcase that had been sitting next to the reception desk and held it up. "You've brought her uninjured, as requested, so you're bonus is inside."

Moira seemed to remember the mercenary telling her the deal had been dead or alive, and definitely recalled being injured. _I'll bring it up later,_ she thought. _I'd hate for anyone to get shortchanged. _

The mercenary shoved Moira forward, hard, making her stumble. She was on her hands and knees when the briefcase flew through the air, and was caught by the Talon leader.

Moira heard him begin to fumble with the lock, and noticed two things from Mr. Burke. One, he had something in his left hand. It was small and black with a bit of red. _A detonator,_ she thought, having seen enough of them to know. The other thing she noticed was the look on his face, as though some part of his schemes had gone drastically wrong.

"Don't count it here, you ass," he said.

"Why the fuck not?" said the Talon leader. "Damn thing won't open."

She heard weapons being readied, first by the two Talons then the Tenpenny Tower guards.

Mr. Burke took a few steps forward and yanked Moira by the hair. "Ow!" she said, standing up. He shoved her into the reception desk and grabbed at her feet. Moira didn't know why he was trying to shove her over the desk, but decided to help him out.

As she went over, guns began going off. She couldn't see who was shooting, but assumed it was everyone. She covered her head and was nearly stepped on by the man who had been sitting behind the desk. He was now crouched behind it and shooting.

Once again, Moira acknowledged to herself she was no battle expert, but for a three-on-twelve gunfight, it sure was going on a long time. _Maybe the Talon Company is as tough as everyone says,_ she thought. As wood chips rained down on her legs, she wondered if adding the Talon Company to the survival guide would date it too much.

Suddenly the world was nothing but sound and a powerful vibration, loud and furious, threatening to destroy her eardrums forever. She covered them and gritted her teeth in pain, waiting for the ringing to stop.

The tower guard that had been crouched next to her was shaking his head as well. He remained crouched for a time, and stood up. From his posture, Moira could tell whatever had blown up had also ended the battle.

"…up…" she heard.

"I…up…" the guard was moving his mouth at her, but she couldn't hear him over the ringing.

"Get up, now," he said, still muffled.

She stood and turned to look at the lobby. There was no sign of the Talon leader, assuming the boot next to one of the damaged pillars didn't also have his foot still in it. the bomb had blacked the walls and taken a layer of concrete off the pillars. The only intact bodies were the ones of tower guards who had been shot first before the bomb went off. The bodies of the Talons were hard to pick out, having been scattered.

Not everyone was dead. A few tower guards were moaning, while one held his leg in his hands, examining it calmly.

"Fuck," the former sitting guard said. "I'm going to go get a doctor, stay here."

"I'm a doctor," Moira said. _An okay one, anyway,_ she thought. She was no Doc Church, but at least her bedside manner was much nicer.

"Then start doctoring," he said. "And shoot that asshole Burke if you see him."

She didn't see him, which was good because she didn't feel like shooting anyone. Looking around at the carnage, she tried to pick who she might be able to help the most and decided on a man holding his stomach.

**To be continued…**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine. **

She helped Dr. Banfield, an elderly black man with short white hair help the wounded that could be helped and give a lethal dose of medication to those who couldn't. Moira let Dr. Banfield handle the dosing.

There was no sign of Mr. Burke, something the guard who hid behind the desk with her, Chief Gustavo, said wasn't surprising at all.

"When I see him, he's dead," said Gustavo once the wounded had been set to rest. In the end, three of the twelve guards had survived. There were other guards upstairs, but Gustavo was not happy about his forces being depleted. Moira, again admitting she knew little about war, didn't see why he was so bothered by the loss. He clearly had no personal affection for his men, and the tower was fortified well enough so that only a few were needed to keep danger out.

After all was said and done, Gustavo went about reassigning security guards to make up for the loss. Moira had been about to ask Dr. Banfield if anyone else lived in the tower, when they were joined by another old man. He wore a brown sweater over a blue shirt, and had a rifle slung over his back.

"Looks like I missed the fun," he said, stroking his beard and surveying the damage. "Herbert Dashwood," he said, walking over to Moira and extending his hand. She took it to shake, but he too it and kissed the back of it. "And who might you be, young lady?"

Her cheeks turned red. "M-Moira Brown," she said. "I'm from Megaton." Dashwood's voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place where she had heard it.

"Ah, Megaton," Dashwood said. "That's the place with the live nuke right in the town square? My kind of place."

Dr. Banfield was frowning. "Indeed it is," he said. "How is everyone upstairs?"

"Fine, fine," Dashwood said, as Gustavo came back towards them from a back hallway. "I think everyone's enjoying the little holiday caused by the ruckus."

"More likely they're bitching," said Gustavo. "I can hear it now 'This place is supposed to be secure. Why are there bombs going off in the lobby.' I'll kill that Burke when I see him and feed his carcass to the ghouls."

The three men went silent at the mention of ghouls.

"I know a ghoul," Moira said. "His name is Gob."

"That's a good name for a ghoul," Gustavo said. "Descriptive. Take that Roy Phillips. His name aught to be Disgusting, or Asshole."

"I knew one named Argyle," Dashwood said. "Best manservant a man could have. Saved my skin more times than I care to admit." Gustavo's eyes rolled, while Dr. Banfield's seemed interested. "Why, one time, we…"

"Can it," Gustavo said, cutting Dashwood off. "I'm in no mood for your stories. How about you head over to Warrington Station and kill those assholes yourself? I'd listen to that."

Dashwood crossed his arms. "Young people, who needs 'em?" He looked to Moira. "Are you a fan of Galaxy News Radio? You might have heard about me from there."

It clicked in Moira's mind as to where she knew Dashwood from. She should have recognized the name, and now could taste Mentats on the back of her tongue. Maybe they had some in the tower.

"I can see by your expression you're a fan," Dashwood said. Banfield and Gustavo excused themselves while Dashwood, launched into a long monologue about how he used to roam the wasteland with his ghoul manservant Argyle, getting into adventures.

Many of the exploits he recounted she had heard over the airwaves, but a few she hadn't. Moira stood enthralled, forgetting her Mentats. _He can help with the guide,_ she thought. _He knows everything!_

She didn't know how long she had been listening to Dashwood, but his talk was interrupted by Gustavo. "Mr. Tenpenny would like to see you," he said. "This time, it's your choice, but I suggest you meet with him."

Dashwood nodded for her to go, and she followed Gustavo to the elevator which took them up to the top of the tower. He led her past some of the finer suites and through an interior garden.

Past a red door, Moira found herself out on a high balcony, overlooking the wasteland. She could see the D.C. ruins with the Washington Monument jutting up into the sky, and thought she could pick out a pile of junk nearby to the north that could have been Megaton.

Alistair Tenpenny was sitting in a chair next to a chessboard off to her right. "Moira Brown, is it?" said Tenpenny. He was an older man, as Moira had expected. He was dressed in white pants and a red coat with a red tie. Leaning on the rail next to him was an impressive looking rifle.

"Um, yes," she said, extending her hand. He took it and gave it one firm shake.

"I'm afraid I owe you an apology," he said. "I mentioned off-hand one day around Mr. Burke that your hometown was a bit of an eyesore. The man is quite eager to please and it seems he took it upon himself to blow the place up."

"Oh," Moira said. "I was wondering what was wrong with it."

"A trifle," Tenpenny said. "If the sum of my ambitions was this tower and this tower alone, Megaton's renovation might be a priority, but it is not."

"That's good to know," Moira said. "Um, not to be rude but…"

"No, no, my dear," Tenpenny said. "I understand perfectly. You may leave at any time, although…"

"Although?"

"I would advise you to look around. Have Gustavo here take you on a tour. See what my tower has to offer, meet some of the people. If you like it and think you might consider staying, come and speak with me. I may be able to get that Moriarty fellow out of your business, as well as see to it that the Talon Company doesn't seek retribution."

Moira swallowed hard. She had figured Mr. Burke was the bad one, but it seemed as though she had her hopes up for nothing. "I'll have a look," she said, hoping she didn't sound as terrified as she felt.

"Very well then. Gustavo?"

Gustavo tapped her on the back and they walked back into the tower. It was quite clear to her Gustavo wanted no part of being a tour guide judging from his one word descriptions of places. All the suite doors were shut as well, so she didn't get to meet any residence.

The tour ended at the tower's front gate. "In case you didn't get it," Gustavo said, "Either Megaton goes or you do. Personally, I don't give a molerat's ass. Serves you morons right for living near a bomb. Now, get out of her and watch your back."

She was ushered out the front gate. It was late in the afternoon and she had no weapon, plus the back of her head still hurt. Hungry, thirsty, and tired, Moira set off running back towards Megaton. Simms' time limit on killing Mr. Burke didn't seem to matter much now, but she still had some work to do with the mini nuke, if it was still where she had left it.

People still wanted to blow up her home and perhaps her along with it. _I wish there was a guide on not getting kidnapped,_ she thought. _It takes up an awful lot of time._

**To be continued…**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten. **

To her surprise, the mini nuke was where she had left it, along with her tools. She had gone out in the evening to retrieve them and hurried back to Megaton with the intent to work on the bomb behind her shop counter the next day. She couldn't afford to keep it closed another day, and she suspected the people in town who needed supplies were getting antsy.

_I'll just keep it out of sight, and the sheriff won't yell at me,_ she thought.

Moira had little time to work on the mini nuke, as she had customers in for much of the day and she was the only one working. Her time off had caused a back-up, but few people bothered to ask where she had been.

Towards the day's end, the small trickle of people dried up and it was closing time. After she locked the door, she set to work on the bomb, remembering vaguely what she had discovered about its inner workings the other day. It seemed that the conventional explosives were disarmed like anything else, which made the uranium unable to do its fission thing.

_Or was it fusion? _Moira thought.

Either way, she now knew how to approach the big nuke at the center of town.

She went to bed, telling herself that once the bomb was defused, all of her extraneous efforts would be bent towards finding a decent supply of Mentats. The cravings were getting less frequent, but were stronger each time.

Lying on her bed, looking at the ceiling, she wondered if the Talon Company really would come after her like Tenpenny had implied. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed they would be after Tenpenny or Mr. Burke, but realized such people had ways of shifting blame.

Moira didn't sleep well with Tenpenny, the Talon Company, her shortage of Mentats, and the nuclear bomb she had to defuse weighing on her mind.

***

Her breakfast of cold iguana on a stick wasn't sitting well in her stomach. Her shop was open and Lucas Simms walked in. "What happened?" he asked. "You were gone too long the other day."

She told about the day before with the Talon Company and what happened at Tenpenny Tower.

Simms didn't believe her at first, but after telling the story a few more times and showing him the lump on the back of her head, he bought it.

"Looks I won't have to take care of Mr. Burke after all, unless he shows his face around here again," Simms said. "I take it you still want to defuse that thing?"

Moira nodded. "I've got it figured out," she said. "A normal bomb sets off the…"

"Not interested," Simms said. "If the real thing is too far removed from the one you're working on, forget it. We can build a fence around the thing if we need to."

"Won't the church…"

"They'll be mad regardless of what we do, which is why you're defusing it at night when they can't see," Simms said.

"Ah, okay," she said, wondering if that hadn't been her original plan all along. She supposed it made sense, as few in the town would be keen on the idea of anyone messing with the bomb.

"Don't screw this up," Simms said, reaching into his duster pocket. He pulled out a small, battered box of Mentats and threw them on the counter. "Don't say I never gave you anything."

Simms hadn't laid a hand on the door knob before Moira had the box open and two Mentats in her mouth. They hit her quickly, as though her body absorbed them faster due to the fact it had gone without for so long. She felt her mind begin to unclog, and wondered how she had been able to manage for so long with her brain in such a state.

_No wonder I keep getting kidnapped,_ she thought.

***

That night, her feet wet with the irradiated water that collected in the crater around the nuke itself, she quietly removed some of the out plating and began looking around inside with a small flashlight. To her relief, the big nuke was built almost exactly like the mini nuke.

"What's that?" she whispered, seeing something familiar which she didn't like the look of at all. It was small, rectangular, and wired haphazardly to the bomb's detonation system. Moira popped a Mentat, and carefully removed it, noticing one of the wires connecting it, the blue one, to already have come off.

It was the same sort of device Mr. Burke had given her when they met, the one that when activated, would detonate the bomb after a certain amount of time. The timer on the device she held still had five minutes left on it, and it made her skin grow cold.

Licking her dry lips, she set the device down and went back to the bomb. Her already overwhelming suspicions were confirmed; by looking at the dust stains, the bomb had been opened up and tampered with long before she had gotten to it.

Looking behind her once to make sure, she continued her work, removing the conventional explosives that worked to detonate the uranium load, which she also removed.

"There," she said, lumping the important parts of the nuke into a bag and closing the shell back up as carefully as she could so as not to make it look like anyone had been tampering with the bomb.

She went back to The Craterside Supply, where she locked her door behind her and slid a stool against the door knob. The bag of nuke parts, which she knew were quite irradiated and hazardous, she set inside a led lined cabinet she kept for such things and went to bed.

Moira didn't sleep. Her nerves were on edge from defusing the bomb, which she expected, but now there was the question of who had rigged it to explode. Had it been Mr. Burke? If so, why where they kidnapping her and telling her to rig it when it was already rigged? Was someone else altogether trying to blow up Megaton?

She popped another Mentat, and wondered.

**To be continued…**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven.**

She woke up to the sound of gunfire.

Rolling out of bed, she remembered to get into her RobCo jumpsuit before heading out the door. It was early in the morning, but people were running all over the town's catwalks and the crater's edge near the wall. Everyone was carrying a weapon, and the main gate had been closed.

"Moira!" came Walter's voice from her left. She turned to see the old man's dark, wrinkled face twisted with aggravation. "Get a gun, woman, we're under attack!"

Nodding, she went back inside, grabbed her 10mm pistol and went back out. Walter was still standing there, looking like he didn't know what to do with himself. Most of the activity seemed to be centered on the front gate, and she could hear bullets bouncing off the metal walls that surrounded the town.

There was a loud BOOM and a faint vibration. "Damn assholes are shootin' missiles," Walter said. "Won't do 'em any good, heh."

"Who's attacking us?" Moira asked. Raiders and the occasional super mutant gang came wandering near the town now and again, sometimes taking a shot or two, but because of the formidable walls, no one had ever launched a serious assault on Megaton in recent memory.

"Dunno," Walter said. "I've been keeping my ass away from the walls."

Moira watched the commotion from the balcony in front of her shop which was roughly on the same level as the front gate. She could see Lucas Simms shouting orders at people with guns, along with Deputy Weld and Deputy Steel, the two robots that helped Simms with guard duty.

Another missile struck the wall, causing some people to flee and Simms to shout. The walls were holding, but Simms was still ordering people to gun ports.

Moira knew better than to go running off to battle. She stood with Walter until Simms had worked Megaton's fighters into some kind of shape where they could function without him. Billy Creel and Nathan seemed to be taking charge, and Simms ran down the hill towards the nuke, then up the ramps to where Moira and Walter were standing.

"Friends of yours?" Simms said, gesturing to the front gate.

"Who?"

"The Talon Company," Simms said. "I counted at least a dozen, but there's more. Any idea why they might be shooting at us?"

Moira looked at Walter, and back at Simms. "Um…"

"Walter, go make sure the water pump keeps working. We lose water, we're finished."

Walter nodded slowly, looking hard at them both and went up a ramp to the water pump building. When he had gone, Moira told Simms what she had discovered the night before when defusing the bomb.

"That doesn't make sense," he said. "Why would they try to buy you after they had already rigged it to blow?"

"Maybe it was someone else," Moira said. "Mr. Burke did disappear, maybe he came back and did it."

"I would've seen him" Simms said. "It could be they told a few different people to do it, hoping one would succeed. It doesn't matter. Right now, we've got those Talon assholes to deal with. You didn't learn anything that might explain this while at Tenpenny's, did you?"

She shook her head. Maybe her Mentat-less brain hadn't absorbed important details, but even with them she could recall nothing. "Maybe the Talon Company wants the nuke itself. Not to go off, but to have so they can set it off some other place," Moira said.

"They haven't made any demands yet," Simms said. "Either they're showing us how tough they are to start, or they're here to kill us anyway."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

Another missile struck the front gate, causing Megaton's defenders to shout and duck. The Talon Company wasn't exactly the Brotherhood of Steel, but they were well-armed. "I don't know yet," Simms said. "We can hold under siege for a long time, but not long enough. Unless we get help from the Brotherhood or the super mutants decide they want in, it's only a matter of time."

*******

Moira had been forced to allow the townspeople access to her weapon stocks. She tried to keep track of who took what to get it back when the siege was over, but she doubted it would happen.

One thing she didn't let go, or be seen, was the mini nuke. It needed a special launcher to be fired, otherwise it had to be rigged to explode. Unlike its larger counterpart, it was an impact weapon.

Night fell and while the Talon Company's shooting became less frequent, they hadn't left, nor had they said what they wanted. Moira was popping Mentats and eating what was supposed to be canned meat when Simms walked in.

"Alright, Brown, we gotta think," he said.

"Thinking is fun," Moira said, shaking the box of Mentats. "If we knew what they wanted, we could give it to them and they would go."

"We don't know what they want," Simms said. "I suspect they want us wiped out, but I don't know why, unless someone paid them."

"Tenpenny," Moira said. "Blowing up the town didn't work, so he might have paid the Talon Company to get rid of us…but after the fight in the tower…"

"We're not going to appease them," Simms said. "Think about how we can get rid of them. We're not soldiers, we can't run out there guns blazing and expect to win."

"I could re-arm the nuke and we could send it out on a Brahmin cart," Moira said.

Simms laughed. "The town would be caught in the blast, you'd kill everybody."

"Not if I lowered the yield," Moira said. "We could send it out at night, throw a coat over a Mr. Gutsy or a Protectron to make it look like a person and boom! Those poor Brahmin, though…"

Moira ate another Mentat. She was beginning to get the taste in her nose, which meant she should go easy on them for a few hours. She popped a second and promised herself she would stop.

Simms looked at the box and then at Moira. "Alright. I'll round up some men to build the rig, you get to work on the bomb. Be quick about it. The ruse won't fly in daylight and we might not last too many more days."

**To be continued…**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve.**

Using the remote detonator she found inside the nuke, along with the parts she removed, Moira put the bomb back together with what she hoped was less destructive force. While working on it, she thought she found the 200-year-old severed wire that caused the bomb to be a dud in the first place.

She had crawled inside the weapon while a cart was built beneath it and Brahmin were hitched to pull. It was possible the Talon Company would simply blow the entire thing up with a missile before it left the gate, but Simms said it was likely they would wait to ambush it, for fear the real plan was to shoot them from the walls.

As Moira fitted the detonator, she chuckled at the thought of how everyone seemed to be guessing everyone else's motives, but no one really knew anything. Her personal theory was that the Talon Company thought Tenpenny wanted Megaton for himself, or the bomb, and was trying to take it from him. Or Mr. Burke was paying them. It didn't matter, she thought, once the bomb was gone, Megaton wouldn't be worth the Talon's trouble.

"They'll have to call it Cratertown," she said, laughing.

"What's that?" Simms said from outside.

"Nothing," she shouted back, checking to make sure she had missed nothing. She climbed out of the bomb and saw that Simms had the detonator trigger in his hand. She was glad she wouldn't be pushing the button.

The townsfolk had rigged four Brahmin to a wooden sledge and dressed two Protectrons as Wastelanders. She ate another Mentat and looked up at the sky, which was loosing stars as the black sky slowly became purple with the dawn. "We need to hurry," Simms said. "Get that gate open and them Brahmin moving. Look alive!"

The most heavily armed townspeople were near the gate, waiting to return fire should the plan go wrong. The gate to Megaton opened, and the Protectrons moved forward with the Brahmin in town. Moira tried not to think about how their robotic shuffle seemed so obvious and hoped the Talon Company either wouldn't notice or would go after them all the same.

When she saw the backs of the Brahmin go out of sight over the lip of the crater, she, like many others in Megaton, took a dose of Rad-X. Moira knew they would need it. even pared down, the nuke that was about to explode not far from the gate was the real deal, and not a mini nuke.

Simms had gone up on the wall and was peering over the edge, keeping as little of his head exposed as possible. He had removed his hat and was holding the detonator far from his body so as not to bump it and trigger the bomb prematurely.

To be safe, Moira walked to the bottom of the crater, where the bomb used to rest. She noticed that the door to the Church of the Atom had been boarded up from the outside, and the light of a lamp glowed through one of the windows. She thought she had heard talk of the church members not being happy about the bomb leaving and had to be locked up. Others, she heard, had been eager to see the bomb detonate and had fought to get good seats on the wall to witness it. Moira had been to busy to pay much attention though, and now wondered if the church would remain in Megaton or move on.

Knowing the bottom of the crater was the safest place to be should the explosion bee too large, Moira stood there and ate Mentats as she watched the sky over the northern wall for the eventual mushroom cloud. As she was thinking about building a replica out of old scrap, just to keep things the same around town, there was a blinding flash of light.

Unlike most flashes, it wasn't over in a second. The light continued, forcing her to close her eyes, cover them with her hands and face the ground. She heard many people make exclamations as they shied from the light, and then heard what sounded like a wind storm blowing over the wall.

When things were dim enough to open her eyes, she saw the cloud. It was just like in the pictures, a column of fire with a ring in the middle, topped with a billowing white cap. She took another Rad-X, not knowing if two would do any more good but wanting to play it safe.

The mushroom cloud held its form for a little less than half an hour before becoming a misshapen pile of smoke. She knew she should go into her shop and give the radiation time to dissipate a little, but her curiosity overwhelmed her and she ran to the top of the crater towards a catwalk. People cleared the way for her to the top and soon she stood next to Simms who was dusting off his hat.

"That got 'em," he said.

Moira believed him. She was familiar with the piles of debris and rocks around Megaton, and the new face of the typical devastation looked different. She thought she could see the Springvale School still, but wasn't sure. What was sure was that anything that had been living outside of Megaton recently lived no more. "Should we look for bodies?" someone said.

Simms looked to Moira, who shook her head. "No," Simms said. "Nothing's left. We should avoid that area for a while. Not like there was anything there to start."

Moira supposed the benefit of being surrounded by the Wasteland was that there wasn't much to loose.

*******

Moira sat next to Lucas Simms at a table in the Brass Lantern across from Herbert Dashwood. Moira was leaning across the table, nodding along with Dashwood's words, while Simms sat back, bored. Dashwood had been relating a tale about how he had snooped around Tenpenny Tower and uncovered what Tenpenny and Mr. Burke had planned for Megaton, and how there had been a falling out between the two.

The story was more about Dashwood, which bored Simms and enthralled Moira. According to Dashwood, after the incident in the tower with the Talon Company, Burke had been fired by Tenpenny. To get back in his good graces, Burke paid the Talon Company double to wipe Megaton off the map. Their plan had been to breach the walls, kill the townspeople, and detonate the bomb.

"Old Tenpenny thought the town got blown to smithereens when the bomb went off, I heard," Dashwood said. "I know a few of the guards, see. I told this one fella about the time Argyle and I were pinned down by raiders near…"

"So Burke is still on the loose, maybe," Simms said, finishing off his drink. "He'll try again, no doubt, but my concern is the Talon Company."

Dashwood laughed. "I think you sent 'em packing. The Talon Company are a nasty bunch, but they're in it for the money. After what you pulled, there aren't enough caps in the Wasteland to make messing with Megaton a profitable venture. I wouldn't get caught by them out there, though."

"Maybe Mr. Burke was vaporized by the bomb," Moira said. "You might not have to worry about him, Sheriff."

Simms stood. "What I worry about it my business," he said. "You two have a good evening." He tipped his hat and stepped past a man who had been drinking far too much.

Dashwood laughed and sipped his drink. "That Simms, I don't know how he stands it. Keeping to one town, doesn't travel around. I guess he sees plenty of excitement all the same."

Moira nodded, hoping Dashwood would talk more of his own travels in the Wasteland. GNR only seemed to have a limited number of his radio shows and Moira had listened to them all. Dashwood began telling stories, and soon Moira forgot about Mr. Burke and Alistair Tenpenny.

**The End, for now.**


End file.
